GENUKI -- The UK and Ireland Genealogical Information Service
on the Internet

by David Tippey

[This article appeared in the May 1998 issue of Family History
Monthly, and is reproduced here with permission.

The UK and Ireland Genealogical Information Service (GENUKI)
web pages are probably the most important starting point for anyone
using the internet as an aid to their genealogical research.
Supported by the Universities of Manchester and Newcastle among
others, they are maintained by volunteers, and provide an
invaluable guide to the genealogical information available on the
World Wide Web.

GENUKI is growing rapidly as more and more libraries, record
offices and individual genealogists publish their research on the
web. If you have a modem and internet connection for your computer
and are working within the British Isles, an early visit to the
GENUKI home page at http://www.genuki.org.uk/ is
essential. If you don't have your own internet connection, you can
probably access it via a local college or library. There are now
also cyber cafes in most of the larger cities now, where you can
have a cup of coffee and browse the web for an hour or so. Logging
on at a cyber cafe or college, where there is help available from
trained staff, is a good way to find out about the internet before
subscribing to the system yourself.

Unfortunately, researchers in the UK might be disappointed by
the amount of relevant information they'll find. From a
genealogists' point of view, the net is still only a medium for
exchanging ideas, not a record office in cyberspace, though you
might find some indexes or records among its pages. However, the
web does offer you the opportunity to survey the resources which
are available in record offices and libraries, as well as the
services offered by family history societies around Britain and
overseas.

The real strength of the internet is that it allows family
historians all over the world to e-mail each other via newsgroups
and mailing lists. It's always a great joy to share your passion
for the subject with other people, and to pool the fruits of your
own research, while helping other people with theirs. Belonging to
a mailing list is a bit like being in a club, and a club will only
survive if all the members contribute to it.

Having used GENUKI, you'll find that you refer to it all the
time to check library opening hours or to access record office
catalogues. In fact, the information on the internet would fill a
library, and it's all available without leaving home and for the
cost of a local phone call.

Starting Point

The GENUKI home page explains what the service offers, how it's
organised and the way to go about finding information on particular
subjects. GENUKI has information on a wide variety of other useful
topics, and these sections are supported by the self-explanatory
`Frequently Asked Questions' (FAQs) page. A separate section
contains a guide to British records for anyone working from abroad,
while there are also guides to sources for genealogical research
overseas.

Anyone using GENUKI should remember that its name is somewhat
misleading -- the website actually covers the British Isles and
Ireland, rather than just the United Kingdom, and therefore
includes information about the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man,
as well as England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland.

The UK and Ireland hypertext link leads to the main menu, where
you will find the contents arranged in a hierarchical file
structure, familiar to regular computer users. The system is
initially split into two sections, one of which contains 28
categories relating to the whole of the British Isles, the other
dealing with individual regions.

There is also a cover-all category titled `All the British
Isles', which contains information about national archives, the
records they contain and guides to using them. Other subjects
falling within this category are more specific, although they
generally refer to documents which are held in county record
offices, and not among national archives. However, it is well worth
browsing through the general index at
http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/ and downloading the guides
which are featured there, especially the PRO ones.

The British GENUKI categories are as follows:

Archives and Libraries

Cemeteries

Chronology

Civil Registration

Description and Travel

Emigration and Immigration

Genealogy

Heraldry

Land and Property

Merchant Marine

Names, Personal

Occupations

Population

Societies

Bibliography

Census

Church Records

Colonization

Directories

Gazetteers

Handwriting

History

Maps

Military Records

Newspapers

Periodicals

Probate

Taxation

Some of these sections are very brief, with only a single link,
others provide cross-references to a great many related web
pages.

Some contain lists and indexes, like the "Passengers and Crew of
the RMS Titanic" and "Army Motorcyclists -- 1914", but there are no
significant collections such as the 1881 Census Index, or the St.
Catherines Indexes of Births, Marriages and Deaths. Here's some
further information about the following categories:

Archives and Libraries

From this site you can access various other pages where you will
find information about national libraries and archives, their
addresses and opening times, and information they contain. You can
also download various guides including the useful PRO series of
leaflets and an excellent guide to family history research through
the Mormon Family History Centres. Project EARL
electronically links many public libraries in the UK, and its
Familia section provides information about the local studies
collections at participating libraries. Some libraries offer an
"Ask a librarian" service by e-mail, and will supply answers to
your questions in a couple of days.

Several library catalogues can accessed and searched on-line,
for instance, COPAC is a combined on-line guide to some of
the largest University libraries in the British Isles, while
Portico gives you access to the British Library catalogue.
You will still have to go to a library to look at the actual
information you want, but at least you can find out what is
available beforehand and save yourself valuable time during your
visit. You may even be able to pre-order items you wish to
consult.

Maps and Gazetteers

Certificate and census entries often throw up as many questions as
they answer, particularly when you're not familiar with any of the
places they refer to, and you might even be able to access on-line
street maps.

The Ordnance Survey Gazetteer is an on-line version of
their printed guide to the place names contained in the 1:50,000
scale Landranger series of maps. It will give you the location of
all the places which exist today. However, since many villages have
changed their names or were absorbed by nearby towns and cities,
you might have to refer to an older map.

Societies

From the societies page you can find the postal addresses for local
family history societies throughout the country. Many of these
societies have now established web pages to advertise the services
they offer and the pamphlets and microfiche which they sell. You
will also find national genealogical organisations on the internet,
and the Society of Genealogists, the Guild of One-Name Studies and
the Federation of Family History Societies all have web sites.

Newsgroups and Mailing Lists

If you reach a dead end in your research, you can always ask for
help on the web by posting a question to a newsgroup or a mailing
list. You will be surprised at the results such an enquiry can
produce, however obscure its subject. For discussions on topics
relating to the British Isles in general, there are links to the
two newsgroups associated with GENUKI: soc.genealogy.britain
and soc.genealogy.ireland and their corresponding mailing
lists, genbrit-l and genire-l. Both the newsgroups
and mailing lists carry the same messages, so you can use whichever
you prefer. Many other mailing lists now exist for queries relating
to specific counties, and these can be found listed in the GENUKI
regional pages.

GENUKI is organised by county, though the amount and the kind of
information available at each site varies from county to county,
and often depends on the enthusiasm of local family history
societies or individual genealogists in the area. My home county is
Yorkshire, which also happens to be the largest, containing the
three Ridings -- virtually counties in their own right. However,
for such a large, populous region, information about Yorkshire is
rather thin on the ground. Some smaller counties have numerous
local indexes and transcripts available on-line, but Yorkshire has
very few. This is even more surprising in view of the fact that the
area is covered by no less than 14 family history societies, many
of which have sites on the internet.

The structure and content of the Yorkshire pages is fairly
similar to those relating to other counties. They start with a
brief description of the county, in this case taken from
Bartholomew's Gazetteer of the British Isles, 1887.

Information about Yorkshire is then split into several
categories.

Archives and Libraries

Civil Registration

Gazetteers

History

Maps

Societies

Church Records

Description and Travel

Genealogy

Land and Property

Military Records

Towns and Parishes

Archives and Libraries offers links to a variety of
institutions in the county. Some, like the Borthwick Institute of
Historical Research (University of York) will only take you to an
information page, others offer a little more. For example, the
Brynmor Jones Library, Archives and Manuscripts link gives you
access to a catalogue of holdings, which includes family and estate
papers and solicitors archives. The West Yorkshire Archive web site
lists publications, information on current projects and information
for researchers, which includes a useful guide to sources available
in the area.

Cemeteries takes you to Rod Neep's Index to Monumental
Inscription Transcripts for Yorkshire.

Church Records includes links to Paul Joiner's
Marriage Index for Durham and the North Riding of Yorkshire
and Ted Wildy's UK Marriage Witness Indexes. The Yorkshire
Archaeological Society has published a number of transcripts of
parish registers on the internet, and their web site also includes
a list of the scripts for sale on microfiche. The only other
searchable data provided is the Northowram Register of
Non-Conformists from 1644 to 1752.

Civil Registration gives you access to lists of the Civil
Registration Districts for all the three Ridings, plus an
alphabetical index of place names, showing the county and district
in which they were located in during the period between 1837 and
1930.

Description and Travel provides you with information
about businesses and services in Yorkshire today.

Gazetteers offers descriptions of places listed in Thomas
Langdale's Topographical Dictionary of Yorkshire, published
in 1822, with a general overview of the region during the 19th
century. Even the small village where I live has an entry, although
the description is mainly concerned with the church.

Genealogy is an interesting section for all Yorkshire
researchers, and has links to the surname interest lists for the
county, where you can post the names you are researching.

The Genealogy section also includes "Look up Exchanges" for the
three Ridings, in which people with access to particular records
will search them to find information for others. This section also
refers you to other web pages containing information about
genealogy and history in Yorkshire. You will also find details
about the local newsgroups and mailing lists, of which there are
two for Yorkshire: YORKSGEN and WEST-RIDING.
YORKSGEN is dedicted to genealogy and history in Yorkshire,
while, as its name suggests, WEST-RIDING, concentrates
solely on the West Riding.

History offers extracts form various old books, including
a history of Wakefield and its battles by George H. Crowther
(1886).

Beryl Thompson has been busy with a scanner and her copy of
Thomas Baines's Yorkshire Past and Present, which includes
An Account of the Woollen Trade of Yorkshire. She has also
provided a copy of J. Horsfall Turner's Bingley, Its History and
Scenery.

Land and Property features information from the Harvard
Law School Library of Medieval and Early Modern Deeds, giving
descriptions and summaries of around 50 Yorkshire deeds. The page
contains a link to `Religious Houses', featuring documents for
Kirkstall Abbey and Watton Priory.

Maps offers you the chance to download a very detailed
map of Yorkshire prepared by Colin Hinson. Based on the modern road
atlas, Colin's map has included all the parishes and their names,
and identifies individual villages in the parish with the same
coloured dot. The map is in GIF format which can be viewed with a
browser, although it is probably better to use a graphics program
if you have one, as you can reproduce the areas in which you are
interested.

Military Records has a link to the Civilian War Dead Roll
of Honour, listing UK civilians killed by enemy action in WWII;
it's produced by the Imperial War Graves Commission. If you had an
army officer in the family you may find them listed in the
commissions lists for the North York Militia or the 4th Battalion
(Alexandra, Princess of Wales' Own) Yorkshire Regiment, from 1758
to 1907. Recipients of the Victoria Cross in the Northeast of
England are also listed.

Societies lists the 14 family history societies in
Yorkshire, each covering their own area of the county. You can find
all the addresses here, and some have their own web sites
containing further details about meetings and publications.

Towns and Parishes features a list of over 4,000
Yorkshire place names, and shows in which of the Ridings they can
be found. It also contains links to 183 East Riding, 180 North
Riding and 200 West Riding parishes. These parish pages contain
descriptions of the towns, villages or hamlets within each parish,
taken from Baines's Directory of the County of York (1823)
and the Yorkshire Topographical Dictionary. Not many of the
parish pages have additional links at present, but you can find
occasional snippets of information or photographs on some of
them.

GENUKI is a marvellous resource which, like good wine, continues
to improve with age. There is no doubt that it is of considerable
value to researchers both at home and abroad, and that it should be
supported by everyone researching British ancestors. If you have a
web site, add GENUKI to your links, and if you have produced any
computerised indexes or transcripts, let the people who maintain
the GENUKI website know -- a little knowledge can go a long
way.